This is the latest news from the IRS Wage & Investment Division, shared with us by the Office of National Public Liasion...

The IRS will extend its transcript faxing service beyond the planned Feb 4 end date and is reviewing options for a new timeframe. We are committed to providing you with advance notice of the new date.  As a reminder, you can now have unmasked Wage and Income Transcripts sent to your e-Services secure mailbox if you follow certain procedures. This should help bring clients into compliance and allow for electronic filing.

For details, please see Fact Sheet 2018-20, "Steps for tax professionals to obtain wage and income transcripts needed for tax preparation." Additionally, due to the government shutdown, we are working hard to catch up on processing third-party authorization forms. We may also experience longer than normal wait times on our toll free telephone lines as our employees return to duty and we resume training and other filing season readiness activities. We ask for your patience as we work to resume normal operations.

 Please be alert to upcoming communications regarding transcript issues.